The present invention relates to bodies for refuse pickup trucks and, more particularly, to an improved body incorporating a hopper, a reciprocable packer within the hopper and a refuse collection and compaction tank whose forward end opens into communication with the hopper.
Refuse pickup trucks commonly comprise a truck chassis fitted with a body that is made by a manufacturer other than the maker of the chassis. Federal and local laws impose legal limitations on the gross weight and dimensions of the fully loaded vehicle. Thus, the body builder is commonly faced with the problem of designing a refuse compactor body that will carry the largest possible legal payload within the confines of the body size and gross vehicle weight limits imposed by these laws, so that the refuse hauler will avoid the severe fines imposed on violators, especially of the weight laws.
In the past, in order to maximize the volume of refuse carried per unit of length of the refuse truck, a quadrangular cross section of tank has been commonly used, sometimes to the full width and height allowed by the law. In a variation of the rectangular cross section body, the upper outside corners of the body or tank have been beveled into a six-sided shape. Recognizing that a circular cross section is structurally more efficient than a quadrangular section, some body builders have devised cylindrical refuse compactor bodies. However, these are wasteful of the legally available height and weight and thus inefficient in terms of maximum utilization per unit length (and weight) of the truck chassis. Further, in order to withstand the substantial internal packing pressures involved the cylindrical bodies, like the square bodies, require heavy girth reinforcement at spaced intervals along the length of the body which leads to increased manufacturing expense in view of the necessity of making arcuate girth reinforcement members. Another body that has been devised tapers divergently from the front end towards the rear end while having an octagonal cross sectional configuration. This body is essentially a quadrangular body with flattened corners and because of its tapered construction is expensive to manufacture since the girth reinforcement members at spaced intervals along the length of the bodies are of unequal perimeters and the sheet metal panels defining the facets of the body are tapered.